Generating a feed of content for presentation by a client device to users identified in video data captured by the client device

ABSTRACT

A client device includes a display device and one or more image capture devices configured to capture video data of a local area surrounding the client device. Different users of an online system are identified from the captured video data, provided privacy settings maintained for the users authorize their identification from the video data, and the client device transmits a request for content to the online system that identifies each of the identified users. The client device receives content items selected for each of the identified users from the online system. From the received content items, the client device generates a feed of content that includes at least one content item selected for each of the identified users and presents the generated feed of content via the display device.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of co-pending U.S. application Ser.No. 16/153,669, filed Oct. 5, 2018, which claims the benefit of U.S.Provisional Application No. 62/611,566, filed Dec. 29, 2017, each ofwhich is incorporated by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

This disclosure relates generally to presenting a feed of contentcomprising one or more content items for display by a client device withcaptured video data.

Client devices and online systems exchange large amounts of content witheach other pertaining to various users of each. For example, an onlinesystem shares content to client devices associated with users of theonline system for presentation to the users of the online system.However, conventional client devices often inefficiently identify usersto an online system, causing the online system to provide the clientdevices with content that is less relevant to the users of the clientdevice. Traditional methods for client devices to identify users promptusers to periodically provide authentication information to a clientdevice. Providing authentication information to a client device maybecome burdensome to a user, decreasing interaction with the clientdevice by the user. While client devices may allow a user to storeauthentication information rather than prompting the user forauthentication information, such a configuration increases a likelihoodof a client device presenting content users other than the user withoutthe user's consent. For example, if a client device is shared bymultiple users, the client device may present content for a user whoseauthentication information is stored by the client device to analternative user of the client device. The preceding scenarios maydecrease user interaction with content presented by client devices.

SUMMARY

A client device includes one or more image capture devices and a displaydevice. An image capture device included in the client device capturesvideo data or image data of a local area surrounding the client devicethat is within a field of view of the imaging device. In variousembodiments, the client device applies one or more machine learnedmodels to characteristics of the video data or the image data capturedby the image capture device to locate people included in the capturedvideo data. In various embodiments, the client device includes acontroller coupled to the image capture device that applies one or moremethods to locate people within the captured video data. The clientdevice may use any suitable model or combination of models to locatepeople within video data captured by the image capture device. Modelsapplied by the client device to captured video data may perform facialtracking (in two-dimensions or in three-dimensions), two-dimensionalpose tracking, three-dimensional pose tracking, or any other suitablemethod to identify portions of a person's face or portions of theperson's body.

The client device identifies a user of the online system and anadditional user of the online system from the people identified withinthe captured video data, subject to privacy settings maintained by theclient device for the user and for the additional user. Additionally,subject to privacy settings maintained by the client device for the userand for the additional user, the client device identifies the user andthe additional user from audio data captured by the client device. Theclient device and an online system that communicates with the clientdevice cooperatively or individually maintain and enforce one or moreprivacy settings for users or people identified from captured video dataor other data in various embodiments. A privacy setting of a user or aperson determines how particular information associated with a user or aperson can be shared, and may be stored in association with informationidentifying the user or the person. In some embodiments, the clientdevice retrieves privacy settings for one or more users maintained bythe online system. In one embodiment, a privacy setting specifiesparticular information associated with a user and identifies otherentities with whom the specified information may be shared. Examples ofentities with which information can be shared may include other users,applications, third party systems or any entity that can potentiallyaccess the information. Examples of information that can be shared by auser include image data including the user or the person, audio dataincluding audio captured from the user or the person, video dataincluding the user or the person, and the like. Privacy settingsmaintained for a user specify whether the client device or the onlinesystem is authorized to identify the user from video data captured bythe client device. In various embodiments, a privacy setting maintainedby the user prevents the client device or the online system fromidentifying the user from captured video data unless the user manuallyalters the privacy setting to authorize the client device or the onlinesystem to identify the user from captured video data.

In various embodiments, the client device compares people identifiedfrom the captured video data to stored information identifying the userand the additional user, provided privacy settings maintained for theuser and for the additional user authorize the client device to compareportions of the captured video data to the stored informationidentifying the user and identifying the additional user. If a personidentified in the captured video data has at least a threshold measureof similarity to information identifying the user, the client deviceidentifies the user as included in the captured video data. Similarly,if person identified in the captured video data has at least thethreshold measure of similarity to information identifying the user, theclient device identifies the additional user as included in the capturedvideo data. In other embodiments, the client device provides informationidentifying people identified in the captured video data to the onlinesystem, which compares the identified people to information identifyingusers of the online system and identifies the user and the additionaluser to the client device based on the comparison. Additionally oralternatively, the client device provides captured audio data to theonline system, which compares the captured audio data to informationidentifying users of the online system who have authorized the onlinesystem to identify the users, and identifies the user or the additionaluser based on the comparison. In other embodiments, the client device orthe online system identifies the user or the additional user based onany suitable information (or combination of information) captured by theclient device and subject to privacy settings maintained for the userand for the additional user.

Subsequently, the client device transmits a request for content to theonline system that includes information identifying the user and theadditional user. For example, the request includes an identifierassociated with the user by the online system and an additionalidentifier associated with the additional user by the online system. Theonline system selects one or more content items for presentation to theuser and one or more additional content items for presentation to theadditional user and transmits the one or more content items and the oneor more additional content items to the online system. From the one ormore content items and the one or more additional content items, theclient device generates a feed of content including at least one contentitem for presentation to the user and at least one additional contentitem for presentation to the additional user. When generating the feedof content, the client device may apply one or more stored diversitycriteria describing amounts of content for presentation to the user oramounts of additional content for presentation to the additional user inthe feed. Additionally, the client device may account for priorinteractions with content by the user or by the additional user whengenerating the feed of content. Similarly, the client device may accountfor prior usage patterns of the client device by the user or by theadditional user when generating the feed of content; for example, theclient device includes one or more content items in feed of contentidentifying functionality of the client device that the user or that theadditional have not previously used. In other embodiments, the clientdevice maintains a setting specifying one or more criteria of contentitems and generates the feed to include at least a threshold amount ofcontent items having characteristics satisfying at least a thresholdamount of the specified criteria. The user or the additional user mayspecify the setting used by the client device in various embodiments.The generated feed is then presented on the display device to the userand to the additional user.

In various embodiments, the client device generates the feed of contentto maximize interaction with the feed of content by the user and theadditional user. In some embodiments, the client device retrieves one ormore settings maintained for the user or for the additional user thatregulates presentation of content by the client device when anotherperson is included in the captured video data. For example, a settingmaintained for the user restricts presentation of content forpresentation to the user when at least one other person is included inthe captured video data, and withholds content items selected forpresentation to the user when the captured video data includes theadditional user. Similarly, the client device may store user preferencesin a user profile specifying specific time intervals when the clientdevice is authorized to present content selected for the user orpresented for the additional user. In additional embodiments, the clientdevice stores information identifying content items or additionalcontent items previously presented to the user or to the additional userwith which the user or the additional user interacted and removes theidentified content items or additional content items from a subsequentlygenerated feed of content.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system environment in which an onlinesystem operates, in accordance with an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a client device, in accordance with anembodiment.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an online system, in accordance with anembodiment.

FIG. 4 is an interaction diagram of a method for generating of a feed ofcontent by an online system for presentation by a client device, inaccordance with an embodiment.

FIG. 5 is an illustration of a client device including a display with afeed of content, in accordance with an embodiment.

The figures depict various embodiments for purposes of illustrationonly. One skilled in the art will readily recognize from the followingdiscussion that alternative embodiments of the structures and methodsillustrated herein may be employed without departing from the principlesdescribed herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION System Architecture

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system environment 100 for an onlinesystem 140 and one or more client devices 110. The system environment100 shown by FIG. 1 comprises one or more client devices 110, a network120, one or more third-party systems 130, and the online system 140.Additionally, in the system environment 100 shown by FIG. 1, acontroller 117 is coupled to a client device 110. In alternativeconfigurations, different and/or additional components may be includedin the system environment 100. For example, the online system 140 is asocial networking system, a content sharing network, or another systemproviding content to users.

The client devices 110 are one or more computing devices capable ofreceiving user input as well as transmitting and/or receiving data viathe network 120. In one embodiment, a client device 110 is aconventional computer system, such as a desktop or a laptop computer.Alternatively, a client device 110 may be a device having computerfunctionality, such as a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobiletelephone, a smartphone, or another suitable device. A client device 110is configured to communicate via the network 120. In one embodiment, aclient device 110 executes an application allowing a user of the clientdevice 110 to interact with the online system 140. For example, a clientdevice 110 executes a browser application to enable interaction betweenthe client device 110 and the online system 140 via the network 120. Inanother embodiment, a client device 110 interacts with the online system140 through an application programming interface (API) running on anative operating system of the client device 110, such as IOS® orANDROID™. As further described below in conjunction with FIG. 2, aclient device 110 includes a display device 115 configured to presentcontent, and one or more image capture devices configured to captureimage or video data of a local area surrounding the client device 110.

The client devices 110 are configured to communicate via the network120, which may comprise any combination of local area and/or wide areanetworks, using both wired and/or wireless communication systems. In oneembodiment, the network 120 uses standard communications technologiesand/or protocols. For example, the network 120 includes communicationlinks using technologies such as Ethernet, 802.11, worldwideinteroperability for microwave access (WiMAX), 3G, 4G, code divisionmultiple access (CDMA), digital subscriber line (DSL), etc. Examples ofnetworking protocols used for communicating via the network 120 includemultiprotocol label switching (MPLS), transmission controlprotocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP), hypertext transport protocol(HTTP), simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP), and file transfer protocol(FTP). Data exchanged over the network 120 may be represented using anysuitable format, such as hypertext markup language (HTML) or extensiblemarkup language (XML). In some embodiments, all or some of thecommunication links of the network 120 may be encrypted using anysuitable technique or techniques.

One or more third party systems 130 may be coupled to the network 120for communicating with the online system 140, which is further describedbelow in conjunction with FIG. 3. In one embodiment, a third partysystem 130 is an application provider communicating informationdescribing applications for execution by a client device 110 orcommunicating data to client devices 110 for use by an applicationexecuting on the client device. In other embodiments, a third partysystem 130 provides content or other information for presentation via aclient device 110. A third party system 130 may also communicateinformation to the online system 140, such as advertisements, content,or information about an application provided by the third party system130.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram 200 of an embodiment of a client device 110.In the embodiment shown in FIG. 2, the client device 110 includes adisplay device 115 and an image capture device 117, as well as acontroller 210. However, in other embodiments, the client device 110includes different or additional components than those shown in FIG. 2.

The display device 115 may be integrated into the client device 110 orcoupled to the client device 110. For example, a display device 115integrated into a client device 110 is a display screen included in theclient device 110. Alternatively, the display device 115 is a monitor orother display coupled to the client device 110. The display device 115presents image data or video data to a user. Image or video datapresented by the display device 115 is determined by an applicationexecuting on the client device 110. Different applications may beincluded on the client device 110, so execution of differentapplications changes the content presented by the user by the displaydevice 115.

The image capture device 117 captures video data or images of a localarea surrounding the client device 110 and within a field of view of theimage capture device 117. In some embodiments, the image capture device117 includes one or more cameras, one or more video cameras, or anyother device capable of capturing image data or video data.Additionally, the image capture device 117 may include one or morefilters (e.g., used to increase signal to noise ratio). Variousparameters (e.g., focal length, focus, frame rate, ISO, sensortemperature, shutter speed, aperture, focal point etc.) configurecapture of video data or image data by the image capture device 117.Hence, modifying one or more parameters of the image capture device 117modifies video data or image data captured by the image capture device117 after modification of the one or more parameters. While FIG. 2 showsa single image capture device 117 included in the client device 110, inother embodiments, the client device 110 includes any suitable number ofimage capture devices 117.

The controller 210 is coupled to the image capture device 117 andcomprises a storage device coupled to a processor. In variousembodiments, the controller 210 is also coupled to the display device115. The controller 210 includes instructions that, when executed by theprocessor, apply one or more models to video data captured by the imagecapture device 117 subject to user-specified privacy settings, which arefurther described below. For example, one or more models applied tovideo data or image data captured by the image capture device 117identify people or objects in the captured video data or image data,provided privacy settings obtained by the controller 210 authorize thecontroller 210 to identify one or more users from the captured videodata or image data. As further described below in conjunction with FIG.4, the controller 210 sends a request for content items to the onlinesystem 140 via the network 120 that identifies users of the onlinesystem 140 identified in the captured video data, subject to privacysettings maintained for various users by the online system 140 or by thecontroller 210. Subsequently, the controller 210 receives content itemsselected by the online system 140 for different users identified fromthe captured video data and generates a feed of content for presentationby the display device 115. As further described below in conjunctionwith FIG. 4, the controller 210 generates the feed of content to includecontent items likely to be of interest to multiple users identified inthe captured video data.

The online system 140 and the controller 210 of the client device 110cooperatively or individually maintain and enforce one or more privacysettings for users or people identified from captured video data orother data in various embodiments. A privacy setting of a user or aperson determines how particular information associated with a user or aperson can be shared, and may be stored in association with informationidentifying the user or the person. In some embodiments, the controller210 retrieves privacy settings for one or more users maintained by theonline system 140. In one embodiment, a privacy setting specifiesparticular information associated with a user and identifies otherentities with whom the specified information may be shared. Examples ofentities with which information can be shared may include other users,applications, third party systems 130 or any entity that can potentiallyaccess the information. Examples of information that can be shared by auser include image data including the user or the person, audio dataincluding audio captured from the user or the person, video dataincluding the user or the person, and the like.

For example, in particular embodiments, privacy settings may allow auser to specify (e.g., by opting out, by not opting in) whether theonline system 140 may receive, collect, log, or store particular objectsor information associated with the user for any purpose. In particularembodiments, privacy settings may allow the user to specify whetherparticular video capture devices, audio capture devices, applications orprocesses may access, store, or use particular objects or informationassociated with the user. The privacy settings may allow the user to optin or opt out of having objects or information accessed, stored, or usedby specific devices, applications or processes. The online system 140may access such information to provide a particular function or serviceto the user, without the online system 140 having access to thatinformation for any other purposes. Before accessing, storing, or usingsuch objects or information, the online system may prompt the user toprovide privacy settings specifying which applications or processes, ifany, may access, store, or use the object or information prior toallowing any such action. As an example, and not by way of limitation, auser may transmit a message to another user via an application relatedto the online social network (e.g., a messaging app), and may specifyprivacy settings that such messages should not be stored by the onlinesystem 140.

The privacy settings maintained and enforced by the online system 140 orthe controller 210 may be associated with default settings. In variousembodiments, the controller 210 does not identify a user within capturedvideo data, audio data, image data, or other data unless the controller210 obtains a privacy setting from the user authorizing the controller210 to identify the user. For example, a privacy setting associated witha user has a default setting preventing the controller 210 fromidentifying the user, so the controller 210 does not identify the userunless the user manually alters the privacy setting to allow thecontroller 210 to identify the user. Additionally, an alternativeprivacy setting regulates transmission of information from the clientdevice 110 identifying the user to another entity (e.g., another clientdevice 110, the online system 140, a third party system 130) in variousembodiments. The alternative privacy setting has a default settingpreventing transmission of information identifying the user in variousembodiments, preventing the controller 210 from transmitting informationidentifying the user to other entities unless the user manually modifiesthe alternative privacy setting to authorize transmission). Thecontroller 210 maintains the one or more privacy settings for each useridentified from captured video data or other data, allowinguser-specific control of transmission and identification of each user.In some embodiments, the controller 210 prompts a person to provideprivacy settings when the controller 210 initially identifies the personfrom captured data and stores the provided privacy settings inassociation with information identifying the person.

In various embodiments, for the online system 140 or various componentsof client device 110 that have functionalities that may use, as inputs,personal or biometric information of a user for user-authentication orexperience-personalization purposes, a user may opt to make use of thesefunctionalities to enhance their experience using the device and theonline system 140. As an example, and not by way of limitation, a usermay voluntarily provide personal or biometric information to the onlinesystem 140. The user's privacy settings may specify that suchinformation may be used only for particular processes, such asauthentication, and further specify that such information may not beshared with any third-party or used for other processes or applicationsassociated with the online system 140. As another example, and not byway of limitation, the online system 140 may provide a functionality fora user to provide voice-print recordings to the online system 140. As anexample, and not by way of limitation, if a user wishes to utilize thisfunction of the online social network, the user may provide a voicerecording of his or her own voice to provide a status update via theonline system 140. The recording of the voice-input may be compared to avoice print of the user to determine what words were spoken by the user.The user's privacy setting may specify that such voice recording may beused only for voice-input purposes (e.g., to authenticate the user, tosend voice messages, to improve voice recognition to use voice-operatedfeatures of the online social network), and further specify that suchvoice recording may not be shared with any third-party system 130 orused by other processes or applications associated with the onlinesystem 140. As another example, and not by way of limitation, the onlinesystem 140 may provide a functionality for a user to provide a referenceimage (e.g., a facial profile) to the online system 140. The onlinesystem 140 may compare the reference image against a later-receivedimage input (e.g., to authenticate the user, to tag the user in photos).The user's privacy setting may specify that such voice recording may beused only for a limited purpose (e.g., authentication, tagging the userin photos), and further specify that such voice recording may not beshared with any third-party system or used by other processes orapplications associated with the online system 140. Any of suchrestrictions on capture biometric and/or other personal data may also beapplied to the client device 110.

Users may authorize the capture of data, identification of users, and/orsharing and cross-application use of user-related data in one or moreways. For example, user may pre-select various privacy settings beforethe users use the features of the client device 110 or take actions inthe online system 140. In another case, a selection dialogue may beprompted when users first carry out an action or use a feature of theclient device 110 or the online system 140 or when users have notcarried out the action or used the feature for a predetermined period oftime. In yet another example, the client device 110 and the onlinesystem 140 may also provide notifications to the users when certainfeatures that require user data begin to operate or are disabled due tousers' selections to allow users to make further selections through thenotifications. Other suitable ways for users to make authorizations arealso possible.

In some embodiments, the controller 210 obtains information maintainedby the online system 140 or from one or more third party systems 130 fora user identified from captured video data, subject to privacy settingsfor the user. Based on video data, audio data, image data, or other dataincluding the user previously captured by the client device 110 and theobtained information, the controller 210 may generate content forpresentation to the user via the client device 110. For example, thecontroller 210 overlays content items from the online system 140associated with one or more objects identified by the controller 210from video data or image data captured by the client device 110.Alternatively, the online system 140 generates content for the userbased on video data, image data, audio data, or other data including theuser received from the client device 110 and information maintained bythe online system 140 for the user (or obtained from one or more thirdparty systems 130 by the online system 140) and provides the generatedcontent to the client device 110 for presentation to the user.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an architecture of the online system 140.The online system 140 shown in FIG. 3 includes a user profile store 305,a content store 310, an action logger 315, an action log 320, an edgestore 325, a content selection module 330, and a web server 335. Inother embodiments, the online system 140 may include additional, fewer,or different components for various applications. Conventionalcomponents such as network interfaces, security functions, loadbalancers, failover servers, management and network operations consoles,and the like are not shown so as to not obscure the details of thesystem architecture.

Each user of the online system 140 is associated with a user profile,which is stored in the user profile store 305. A user profile includesdeclarative information about the user that was explicitly shared by theuser and may also include profile information inferred by the onlinesystem 140. In one embodiment, a user profile includes multiple datafields, each describing one or more attributes of the correspondingonline system user. Examples of information stored in a user profileinclude biographic, demographic, and other types of descriptiveinformation, such as work experience, educational history, gender,hobbies or preferences, location and the like. A user profile may alsostore other information provided by the user, for example, images orvideos. In certain embodiments, images of users may be tagged withinformation identifying the online system users displayed in an image,with information identifying the images in which a user is tagged storedin the user profile of the user. A user profile in the user profilestore 305 may also maintain references to actions by the correspondinguser performed on content items in the content store 310 and stored inthe action log 320.

Additionally, a user profile maintained for a user includescharacteristics of one or more client devices 110 associated with theuser, allowing the online system 140 to subsequently identify the userfrom characteristics provided by a client device 110. For example, anapplication associated with the online system 140 and executing on aclient device 110 provides a device identifier or other informationuniquely identifying the client device 110 to the online system 140 inassociation with a user identifier. The online system 110 stores thedevice identifier or other information uniquely identifying the clientdevice 110 in the user profile maintained for the user, allowingsubsequent identification of the user if the online system 140 receivesthe device identifier or other information uniquely identifying theclient device 110. Other characteristics of client devices 110associated with the user may be alternatively or additionally includedin the user profile maintained by the user. For example, the userprofile includes a network address used by a client device 110 to accessa network 120, an identifier of an application executing on a clientdevice 110 from which the online system 140 received information, a typeof the client device 110 (e.g., a manufacturer, an identifier of a modelof the client device 110, etc.) from which the online system 140received information, and an operating system executing on the clientdevice 110 from which the online system 140 received information.However, the online system 140 may store any suitable characteristics ofa client device 110 in a user profile, allowing the online system 140 tomaintain information about client devices 110 used by the usercorresponding to the user profile.

While user profiles in the user profile store 305 are frequentlyassociated with individuals, allowing individuals to interact with eachother via the online system 140, user profiles may also be stored forentities such as businesses or organizations. This allows an entity toestablish a presence on the online system 140 for connecting andexchanging content with other online system users. The entity may postinformation about itself, about its products or provide otherinformation to users of the online system 140 using a brand pageassociated with the entity's user profile. Other users of the onlinesystem 140 may connect to the brand page to receive information postedto the brand page or to receive information from the brand page. A userprofile associated with the brand page may include information about theentity itself, providing users with background or informational dataabout the entity.

The content store 310 stores objects that each represent various typesof content. Examples of content represented by an object include a pagepost, a status update, a photograph, a video, a link, a shared contentitem, a gaming application achievement, a check-in event at a localbusiness, a brand page, or any other type of content. Online systemusers may create objects stored by the content store 310, such as statusupdates, photos tagged by users to be associated with other objects inthe online system 140, events, groups or applications. In someembodiments, objects are received from third-party applications orthird-party applications separate from the online system 140. In oneembodiment, objects in the content store 310 represent single pieces ofcontent, or content “items.” Hence, online system users are encouragedto communicate with each other by posting text and content items ofvarious types of media to the online system 140 through variouscommunication channels. This increases the amount of interaction ofusers with each other and increases the frequency with which usersinteract within the online system 140.

One or more content items included in the content store 310 include acreative, which is content for presentation to a user, and a bid amount.The creative is text, image, audio, video, or any other suitable datapresented to a user. In various embodiments, the creative also specifiesa page of content. For example, a content item includes a link thatspecifying a network address of a landing page of content to which auser is directed when the content item is accessed. If a user presentedwith the content The bid amount is included in a content item by a userand is used to determine an expected value, such as monetarycompensation, provided by an advertiser to the online system 140 ifcontent in the content item is presented to a user, if the content inthe content item receives a user interaction when presented, or if anysuitable condition is satisfied when content in the content item ispresented to a user. For example, the bid amount included in a contentitem specifies a monetary amount that the online system 140 receivesfrom a user who provided the content item to the online system 140 ifcontent in the content item is displayed. In some embodiments, theexpected value to the online system 140 of presenting the content fromthe content item may be determined by multiplying the bid amount by aprobability of the content of the content item being accessed by a user.

Various content items may include an objective identifying aninteraction that a user associated with a content item desires otherusers to perform when presented with content included in the contentitem. Example objectives include: installing an application associatedwith a content item, indicating a preference for a content item, sharinga content item with other users, interacting with an object associatedwith a content item, or performing any other suitable interaction. Ascontent from a content item is presented to online system users, theonline system 140 logs interactions between users presented with thecontent item or with objects associated with the content item.Additionally, the online system 140 receives compensation from a userassociated with content item as online system users perform interactionswith a content item that satisfy the objective included in the contentitem.

Additionally, a content item may include one or more targeting criteriaspecified by the user who provided the content item to the online system140. Targeting criteria included in a content item request specify oneor more characteristics of users eligible to be presented with thecontent item. For example, targeting criteria are used to identify usershaving user profile information, edges, or actions satisfying at leastone of the targeting criteria. Hence, targeting criteria allow a user toidentify users having specific characteristics, simplifying subsequentdistribution of content to different users.

In one embodiment, targeting criteria may specify actions or types ofconnections between a user and another user or object of the onlinesystem 140. Targeting criteria may also specify interactions between auser and objects performed external to the online system 140, such as ona third party system 130. For example, targeting criteria identifiesusers that have taken a particular action, such as sent a message toanother user, used an application, joined a group, left a group, joinedan event, generated an event description, purchased or reviewed aproduct or service using an online marketplace, requested informationfrom a third party system 130, installed an application, or performedany other suitable action. Including actions in targeting criteriaallows users to further refine users eligible to be presented withcontent items. As another example, targeting criteria identifies usershaving a connection to another user or object or having a particulartype of connection to another user or object.

Subject to privacy settings maintained for different users, which arefurther described above in conjunction with FIG. 2, the action logger315 receives communications about user actions internal to and/orexternal to the online system 140, populating the action log 320 withinformation about user actions. Examples of actions include adding aconnection to another user, sending a message to another user, uploadingan image, reading a message from another user, viewing contentassociated with another user, and attending an event posted by anotheruser. In addition, a number of actions may involve an object and one ormore particular users, so these actions are associated with theparticular users as well and stored in the action log 320.

The action log 320 may be used by the online system 140 to track useractions on the online system 140, as well as actions on third partysystems 130 that communicate information to the online system 140. Usersmay interact with various objects on the online system 140, andinformation describing these interactions is stored in the action log320. Examples of interactions with objects include: commenting on posts,sharing links, checking-in to physical locations via a client device110, accessing content items, and any other suitable interactions.Additional examples of interactions with objects on the online system140 that are included in the action log 320 include: commenting on aphoto album, communicating with a user, establishing a connection withan object, joining an event, joining a group, creating an event,authorizing an application, using an application, expressing apreference for an object (“liking” the object), and engaging in atransaction. Additionally, the action log 320 may record a user'sinteractions with advertisements on the online system 140 as well aswith other applications operating on the online system 140. In someembodiments, data from the action log 320 is used to infer interests orpreferences of a user, augmenting the interests included in the user'suser profile and allowing a more complete understanding of userpreferences.

The action log 320 may also store user actions taken on a third partysystem 130, such as an external website, and communicated to the onlinesystem 140, subject to the privacy settings maintained for the users.For example, an e-commerce website may recognize a user of an onlinesystem 140 through a social plug-in enabling the e-commerce website toidentify the user of the online system 140. Because users of the onlinesystem 140 are uniquely identifiable, e-commerce websites, such as inthe preceding example, may communicate information about a user'sactions outside of the online system 140 to the online system 140 forassociation with the user. Hence, the action log 320 may recordinformation about actions users perform on a third party system 130,including webpage viewing histories, advertisements that were engaged,purchases made, and other patterns from shopping and buying.Additionally, actions a user performs via an application associated witha third party system 130 and executing on a client device 110 may becommunicated to the action logger 315 by the application for recordationand association with the user in the action log 320.

In one embodiment, the edge store 325 stores information describingconnections between users and other objects on the online system 140 asedges. Some edges may be defined by users, allowing users to specifytheir relationships with other users. For example, users may generateedges with other users that parallel the users' real-life relationships,such as friends, co-workers, partners, and so forth. Other edges aregenerated when users interact with objects in the online system 140,such as expressing interest in a page on the online system 140, sharinga link with other users of the online system 140, and commenting onposts made by other users of the online system 140.

An edge may include various features each representing characteristicsof interactions between users, interactions between users and objects,or interactions between objects. For example, features included in anedge describe a rate of interaction between two users, how recently twousers have interacted with each other, a rate or an amount ofinformation retrieved by one user about an object, or numbers and typesof comments posted by a user about an object. The features may alsorepresent information describing a particular object or user. Forexample, a feature may represent the level of interest that a user hasin a particular topic, the rate at which the user logs into the onlinesystem 140, or information describing demographic information about theuser. Each feature may be associated with a source object or user, atarget object or user, and a feature value. A feature may be specifiedas an expression based on values describing the source object or user,the target object or user, or interactions between the source object oruser and target object or user; hence, an edge may be represented as oneor more feature expressions.

The edge store 325 also stores information about edges, such as affinityscores for objects, interests, and other users. Affinity scores, or“affinities,” may be computed by the online system 140 over time toapproximate a user's interest in an object or in another user in theonline system 140 based on the actions performed by the user. A user'saffinity may be computed by the online system 140 over time toapproximate the user's interest in an object, in a topic, or in anotheruser in the online system 140 based on actions performed by the user.Computation of affinity is further described in U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 12/978,265, filed on Dec. 23, 2010, U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 13/690,254, filed on Nov. 30, 2012, U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 13/689,969, filed on Nov. 30, 2012, and U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 13/690,088, filed on Nov. 30, 2012, each of which is herebyincorporated by reference in its entirety. Multiple interactions betweena user and a specific object may be stored as a single edge in the edgestore 325, in one embodiment. Alternatively, each interaction between auser and a specific object is stored as a separate edge. In someembodiments, connections between users may be stored in the user profilestore 305, or the user profile store 305 may access the edge store 325to determine connections between users.

The content selection module 330 selects one or more content items forcommunication to a client device 110 to be presented to a user. Contentitems eligible for presentation to the user are retrieved from thecontent store 310 or from another source by the content selection module330, which selects one or more of the content items for presentation tothe viewing user. A content item eligible for presentation to the useris a content item associated with at least a threshold number oftargeting criteria satisfied by characteristics of the user or is acontent item that is not associated with targeting criteria. In variousembodiments, the content selection module 330 includes content itemseligible for presentation to the user in one or more selectionprocesses, which identify a set of content items for presentation to theuser. For example, the content selection module 330 determines measuresof relevance of various content items to the user based on attributesassociated with the user by the online system 140 and based on theuser's affinity for different content items. A measure of relevance of acontent item to the user is based on a measure of quality of the contentitem for the user, which may be based on the creative included in thecontent item as well as content of a landing page identified by a linkin the content item. Based on the measures of relevance, the contentselection module 330 selects content items for presentation to the user.As an additional example, the content selection module 330 selectscontent items having the highest measures of relevance or having atleast a threshold measure of relevance for presentation to the user.Alternatively, the content selection module 330 ranks content itemsbased on their associated measures of relevance and selects contentitems having the highest positions in the ranking or having at least athreshold position in the ranking for presentation to the user.

Content items eligible for presentation to the user may include contentitems associated with bid amounts. The content selection module 330 usesthe bid amounts associated with content items when selecting content forpresentation to the user. In various embodiments, the content selectionmodule 330 determines an expected value associated with various contentitems based on their bid amounts and selects content items associatedwith a maximum expected value or associated with at least a thresholdexpected value for presentation. An expected value associated with acontent item represents an expected amount of compensation to the onlinesystem 140 for presenting the content item. For example, the expectedvalue associated with a content item is a product of the content item'sbid amount and a likelihood of the user interacting with the contentitem. The content selection module 330 may rank content items based ontheir associated bid amounts and select content items having at least athreshold position in the ranking for presentation to the user. In someembodiments, the content selection module 330 ranks both content itemsnot associated with bid amounts and content items associated with bidamounts in a unified ranking based on bid amounts and measures ofrelevance associated with content items. Based on the unified ranking,the content selection module 330 selects content for presentation to theuser. Selecting content items associated with bid amounts and contentitems not associated with bid amounts through a unified ranking isfurther described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/545,266, filedon Jul. 10, 2012, which is hereby incorporated by reference in itsentirety.

For example, the content selection module 330 receives a request topresent a feed of content to a user of the online system 140. The feedincludes content items such as stories describing actions associatedwith other online system users connected to the user. The contentselection module 330 accesses one or more of the user profile store 305,the content store 310, the action log 320, and the edge store 325 toretrieve information about the user. For example, information describingactions associated with other users connected to the user or other dataassociated with users connected to the user are retrieved. Content itemsfrom the content store 310 are retrieved and analyzed by the contentselection module 330 to identify candidate content items eligible forpresentation to the user. For example, content items associated withusers who not connected to the user or stories associated with users forwhom the user has less than a threshold affinity are discarded ascandidate content items. Based on various criteria, the contentselection module 330 selects one or more of the content items identifiedas candidate content items for presentation to the identified user. Theselected content items are included in a feed of content that ispresented to the user. For example, the feed of content includes atleast a threshold number of content items describing actions associatedwith users connected to the user via the online system 140.

In various embodiments, the content selection module 330 presentscontent to a user through a feed including a plurality of content itemsselected for presentation to the user. The content selection module 330may also determine the order in which selected content items arepresented via the feed. For example, the content selection module 330orders content items in the feed based on likelihoods of the userinteracting with various content items.

The content selection module 330 enforces one or more privacy settingsof the users of the online system 140 in various embodiments. A privacysetting of a user determines how particular information associated witha user can be shared, and may be stored in the user profile of a user inthe user profile store 305. In one embodiment, a privacy settingspecifies particular information associated with a user and identifiesother entities with whom the specified information may be shared.Examples of entities with which information can be shared may includeother users, applications, third party systems 130, or any entity thatcan potentially access the information. Examples of information that canbe shared by a user include user profile information like profile photo,phone numbers associated with the user, user's connections video dataincluding the user, actions taken by the user such as adding aconnection, changing user profile information and the like. In variousembodiments, the online system 140 maintains privacy settings associatedwith a user having a default setting preventing other entities fromaccessing or from receiving content associated with the user, and allowsthe user to modify different privacy settings to allow other entitiesthat are specified by the user to access or to retrieve contentcorresponding to the modified privacy settings.

The privacy setting specification may be provided at different levels ofgranularity. In one embodiment, a privacy setting may identify specificinformation to be shared with other users. For example, the privacysetting identifies a phone number or a specific set of relatedinformation, such as, personal information including profile photo, homephone number, and status. Alternatively, the privacy setting may applyto all the information associated with the user. Specification of theset of entities that can access particular information may also bespecified at various levels of granularity. Various sets of entitieswith which information can be shared may include, for example, all usersconnected to the user, a set of users connected to the user, additionalusers connected to users connected to the user all applications, allthird party systems 130, specific third party systems 130, or allexternal systems.

One embodiment uses an enumeration of entities to specify the entitiesallowed to access identified information or to identify types ofinformation presented to different entities. For example, the user mayspecify types of actions that are communicated to other users orcommunicated to a specified group of users. Alternatively, the user mayspecify types of actions or other information that is not published orpresented to other users.

The content selection module 330 includes logic to determine if certaininformation associated with a user can be accessed by other usersconnected to the user via the online system 140, third-party system 130and/or other applications and entities. Based on the user's privacysettings, the content selection module 330 determines if another user, athird-party system 130, an application or another entity is allowed toaccess information associated with the user, including information aboutactions taken by the user. For example, the content section module 330uses a user's privacy setting to determine if video data including theuser may be presented to another user. This enables a user's privacysetting to specify which other users, or other entities, are allowed toreceive data about the user's actions or other data associated with theuser.

One embodiment uses an enumeration of entities to specify the entitiesallowed to access identified information or to identify types ofinformation presented to different entities. For example, the user mayspecify types of actions that are communicated to other users orcommunicated to a specified group of users. Alternatively, the user mayspecify types of actions or other information that is not published orpresented to other users.

The content selection module 330 includes logic to determine if certaininformation associated with a user can be accessed by other usersconnected to the user via the online system 140, third-party system 130and/or other applications and entities. Based on the user's privacysettings, the content selection module 330 determines if another user, athird-party system 130, an application or another entity is allowed toaccess information associated with the user, including information aboutactions taken by the user. For example, the content section module 230uses a user's privacy setting to determine if video data including theuser may be presented to another user. This enables a user's privacysetting to specify which other users, or other entities, are allowed toreceive data about the user's actions or other data associated with theuser.

The content selection module 330 selects one or more content items fordifferent users of the online system 140 identified in a request forcontent received from a client device 110. Content items selected foreach of the different users are transmitted to the client device 110from which the received request was received. As further described belowin conjunction with FIGS. 4 and 5, the client device 110 generates afeed of content for presentation to the different users from thereceived content items selected by the content selection module 330 thatincludes at least one content item selected for each of the differentusers identified to the content selection module 330.

In various embodiments, the content selection module 330 selects one ormore types of content items for each of the different users fortransmission to the client device 110 from which the received requestwas received. For example, the content selection module 330 transmitsphotographs or other images associated with at least one of the usersidentified in the request for content or photographs or other imagesincluding at least one of the users identified in the request forcontent. Additionally, the content selection module 330 accounts forinformation included in the request for content to select one or morecontent items for different users of the online system 140. In someembodiments, the request for content includes a time, and the contentselection module 330 retrieves content from the content store 210 basedon the time. For example, the time included in the request specifies aday and the month, and the content selection module 330 retrievescontent items associated with the day and the month and associated witha user identified in the request from the content store 210, subject toone or more privacy settings maintained for the user identified in therequest. The content selection module 330 may also account forinformation in a user profile identifying dates specified by a user(e.g., a user's birthday, a user's wedding anniversary, etc.), and whenthe content selection module 330 receives a request for content from theclient device 110 on a date matching a date identified in a user profileof the user, the content selection module 330 retrieves content itemsassociated with the date identified in the user profile of the user inresponse to receiving the request, subject to one or more privacysettings maintained for the user. actions stored in the action log 320.In other embodiments, the content selection module 330 determines a timerange including a time when the request for content was received fromthe client device 110 and retrieves actions stored in the action log 320associated with different users identified by the request for content,subject to privacy settings maintained for each user identified by therequest for content, associated with times within the time range. Basedon actions previously stored in the action log 320 and associated withtimes within the time range for each of the users identified for therequest for content, the content selection module 330 retrieves one ormore content items. For example, if the action log 320 includes at leasta threshold number of requests for content having a particular topicassociated with a user identified by the request for content andassociated with times within the time range including the time when thecontent selection module 330 received the for content, the contentselection module 330 retrieves one or more content items associated withthe particular topic in response to receiving the request for contentidentifying the user (e.g., retrieves one or more content itemsassociated with a topic of “news” or retrieves one or more content itemsassociated with a topic of “recipe”).

The web server 335 links the online system 140 via the network 120 tothe one or more client devices 110, as well as to the one or more thirdparty systems 130. The web server 335 serves web pages, as well as othercontent, such as JAVA®, FLASH®, XML and so forth. The web server 335 mayreceive and route messages between the online system 140 and the clientdevice 110, for example, instant messages, queued messages (e.g.,email), text messages, short message service (SMS) messages, or messagessent using any other suitable messaging technique. A user may send arequest to the web server 335 to upload information (e.g., images orvideos) that are stored in the content store 310. Additionally, the webserver 335 may provide application programming interface (API)functionality to send data directly to native client device operatingsystems, such as IOS®, ANDROID™, or BlackberryOS.

Generating a Feed of Content Items Selected for Multiple UsersIdentified by a Client Device

FIG. 4 is an interaction diagram of one embodiment of a method forgenerating a feed of content from content items received by an onlinesystem 140 for presentation by a client device 110. In variousembodiments, the steps described in conjunction with FIG. 4 may beperformed in different orders. Additionally, in some embodiments, themethod may include different and/or additional steps than those shown inFIG. 4

The client device 110 includes an image capture device 117, as furtherdescribed above in conjunction with FIGS. 1 and 2. The image capturedevice 117 of the client device 110 captures 410 video data or imagedata of a local area surrounding the receiving client device 110. Imagescaptured by the image capture device 117 are communicated to acontroller 210 included in the client device 110 (or coupled to thereceiving client device 110 in other embodiments). In variousembodiments, the controller 210 applies one or more machine learnedmodels to characteristics of the video captured 410 by the image capturedevice 117 to locate people included in the captured video data. Invarious embodiments, the controller 210 applies one or more methods tolocate people within the captured video data. The controller 210 may useany suitable model or combination of models to locate people withinvideo data captured 410 by the image capture device 117 of the clientdevice 110. Models applied by the controller 210 to captured video datamay perform facial tracking (in two-dimensions or in three-dimensions),two-dimensional pose tracking, three-dimensional pose tracking, or anyother suitable method to identify portions of a person's face orportions of the person's body.

From the captured video data and one or more privacy settings maintainedby the online system 140 or by the client device 110, the client device110 identifies 420 a user of the online system 140 included in thecaptured video data and identifies 430 an additional user of the onlinesystem 140 included in the captured video data. In some embodiments, theclient device 110 locally maintains information identifying one or moreusers of the online system 140 and determines measures of similarity ofpeople identified in the captured video data to maintained informationidentifying one or more users of the online system 140. For example, theclient device 110 locally maintains information identifying users of theonline system 140 who have previously interacted with the client device110, for whom the client device 110 received identifying informationfrom the online system 140, of for whom the client device 110identifying information from another entity. Additionally, the clientdevice 110 obtains and locally maintains privacy settings for users ofthe online system 140 who have previously interacted with the clientdevice, for whom the client device 110 received identifying informationfrom the online system 140, or for whom the client device 110 receivedidentifying information from another information. The client device 110identifies 420 a user of the online system 140 for whom the clientdevice 110 obtained a privacy setting authorizing the client device 110to identify 420 the user and for whom the client device 110 maintainsidentifying information having at least a threshold measure ofsimilarity to a person identified from the captured video data.Similarly, the client device 110 identifies 430 an additional user ofthe online system 140 for whom the client device 110 obtained a privacysetting authorizing the client device 110 to identify 430 the additionaluser and for whom the client device 110 maintains identifyinginformation having at least a threshold measure of similarity to analternative person identified from the captured video data. In variousembodiments, the client device 110 determines the measures of similarityof the user or of additional user by applying a trained model for facialrecognition to the captured image data and comparing faces of peopleidentified in the captured video data to stored information identifyingthe user and the additional user. For example, the trained model cropscaptured video data or image data to identify faces of people in thecaptured video data and compares the identified faces from the croppedvideo data or image data to stored information identifying faces of theuser and of the additional user. The client device 110 does not identify420 users for whom the client device 110 obtains a privacy setting thatprohibits identification of users from video data captured 410 by theimage capture device 117 of the client device 110.

Alternatively, the receiving client device 110 transmits the capturedvideo data to the online system 140, which includes informationidentifying various users, as further described above. In someembodiments, the client device 110 includes information identifyingpeople identified within the captured video data by the client device110 to the online system 140. Alternatively, the online system 140identifies people within the captured video data by applying one or moreof the methods further described above. The online system 140 determinesmeasures of similarity between people identified in the captured videodata and information identifying various users using any suitable methodor methods. The online system 140 identifies 420 a person identified inthe captured video data having at least a threshold measure ofsimilarity to information identifying the user of the online system 140.Similarly, the online system 140 identifies 430 an alternative personidentified in the captured video data having at least a thresholdmeasure of similarity to information identifying the additional user ofthe online system 140. The online system 140 transmits informationidentifying the user and the additional user to the client device 110.

When identifying users included in video data received from the clientdevice 110, the online system 140 enforces privacy settings maintainedby the online system 140 for various users. Hence, if the online system140 maintains a privacy setting that authorizes the online system 140 toidentify the user from video data received from a client device 110, theonline system 140 compares people identified in the video data receivedfrom the client device 110 to information identifying the user, allowingthe online system 140 to determine whether the video data includes theuser. However, if the online system 140 maintains an alternative privacysetting for the user that does not authorize the online system 140 toidentify the user from video data captured by the client device, theonline system 140 does not compare people identified in the video datareceived from the client device 110 to information identifying the user.In some embodiments, a privacy setting maintained by the online system140 for a user includes identifiers of specific client devices 110, soif the online system 140 receives video data from a client device 110having an identifier matching an identifier specified by the privacysetting maintained by the user, the online system 140 compares peopleidentified from video data received from the client device 110 toinformation maintained by the online system 140 identifying the user.However, if the online system 140 receives video data from analternative client device 110 having an identifier that does not matchat least one identifier specified by the privacy setting maintained bythe user, the online system 140 does not compare people identified fromvideo data received from the alternative client device 110 toinformation maintained by the online system 140 identifying the user.Alternatively or additionally, a privacy setting maintained by theonline system 140 for the user maintains an exclusion list ofidentifiers of client devices 110, so the online system 140 does notcompare people identified from video data received from a client device110 having an identifier included on the exclusion list to informationmaintained by the online system 140 that identifies the user; however,in the preceding embodiment, the online system 140 may compareinformation identifying the user to people identified from video datareceived from a client device 110 having an identifier that is notincluded on the exclusion list. Hence, the online system 140 enforcesone or more privacy settings maintained by the online system 140 for theuser and for the additional user when identifying 420 the user and whenidentifying 430 the additional user from video data received from theclient device 110.

The client device 110 or the online system 140 may use other informationobtained by the client device 110 to identify 420 the user and toidentify 430 the additional user, subject to privacy settings maintainedfor the user and for the additional user. For example, the client device110 includes one or more audio capture devices. The client device 110 orthe online system 140 compares captured audio data to stored audio dataidentifying the user or identifying the additional user, provided theuser or the additional user have authorized to be identified from audiodata. Responsive to the captured audio data having at least a thresholdmeasure of similarity to stored audio data identifying the user, theclient device 110 or the online system 140 identifies 420 the user;similarly, the client device 110 or the online system 140 identifies 430the additional user responsive to the captured audio data having atleast a threshold measure of similarity to stored audio data identifyingthe user, the client device 110 or the online system 140 identifies 430the additional user. In other embodiments, the client device 110 or theonline system 140 identifies 420 the user or identifies 430 theadditional user via any suitable information obtained by the clientdevice 110. For example, the user or the additional user authorizes anadditional device to provide information identifying the user or theadditional user to the client device 110.

The client device 110 transmits 440 a request for content items to theonline system 140 that includes information identifying the user and theadditional user to the online system 140. For example, the requestincludes an identifier associated with the user by the online system 140and an additional identifier associated with the additional user by theonline system 140. However, in other embodiments, the request includesany suitable information identifying the user and identifying theadditional user to the online system 140. In some embodiments, therequest may include criteria for selecting content. For example, therequest identifies a number of content items to select, and may specifya number of content items for the user and a number of content items forthe additional user. In another example, the client device 110 may havecertain content restrictions such that the client device 110 wouldinclude such content restrictions within the request. In someembodiments, the client device 110 transmits 440 the request in responseto receiving an input from the user or from the additional user.Alternatively, the client device 110 transmits 440 the request based onone or more settings stored in association with the user or inassociation with the additional user.

In response to receiving the request, the online system 140 selects 450one or more content items for the user and selects 460 one or morecontent items for the additional user. In some embodiments, the onlinesystem 140 determines measures of relevance of various content items tothe user based on characteristics of the user and characteristics of thecontent items and selects 450 content items for the user based on themeasures of relevance. Similarly, the online system 140 determinesmeasures of relevance of various content items to the additional userbased on characteristics of the additional user and characteristics ofthe content items and selects 460 additional content items for theadditional user based on the measures of relevance. Selection of contentitems is further described above in conjunction with FIG. 3. Whenselecting 450 the content items for the user and selecting 460 thecontent items for the additional user, the online system 140 accountsfor one or more criteria included in the request. For example, if therequest specifies a number of content items for the user and number ofcontent items for the additional user, the online system 140 selects 450the number of content items for the user and selects 460 the number ofcontent items for the additional user.

The online system 140 transmits 470 the content items selected 450 forthe user and the additional content items selected 460 for theadditional user to the client device 110. From the content itemsselected 450 for the user and the additional content items selected 460for the additional user, the client device 110 generates 480 a feed ofcontent including at least one content item selected 450 for the userand at least one additional content item selected 460 for the additionaluser. The client device 110 subsequently presents 490 the feed ofcontent via the display device 115. When generating 480 the feed ofcontent, the client device 110 determines an order in which contentitems received from the online system 140 are presented. In someembodiments, the order is based on likelihoods of the user or theadditional user interacting with different content items and additionalcontent items, so the client device 110 orders the one or more contentitems and the one or more additional content items included in the feedto maximize an overall likelihood of interaction with the feed.Additionally, in some embodiments, the online system 140 maintains oneor more diversity criteria specifying numbers of content items oradditional content items included in the feed and generates 480 the feedof content subject to the one or more diversity criteria. For example,one or more diversity criteria specify a minimum number of content itemsand a minimum number of additional content items included in the feed ofcontent and generates 480 the feed of content so at least the minimumnumber of content items and at least the minimum number of additionalcontent items are included in the feed of content. In other embodiments,the client device 110 maintains any suitable diversity criteriaregulating content items or additional content included in the feed ofcontent and generates 480 the feed of content subject to the one or morediversity criteria.

In some embodiments, the client device 110 accounts for settings orpreferences maintained for the user and for the additional user. Forexample, the settings or preferences for the user and for the additionaluser are included in user profiles maintained for the user and for theadditional user. The client device 110 may receive a user profilemaintained by the online system 140 for the user and an additional userprofile maintained by the online system 140 for the additional user whenthe online system 140 receives information identifying the user andidentifying the additional user in some embodiments. Alternatively, theclient device 110 transmits portions of the user profile of the user andof the additional user profile of the additional user to the clientdevice 110, subject to privacy settings maintained for the user and forthe additional user, when transmitting 470 the content items selected450 for the user and when transmitting 480 the content items selected460 for the additional user, respectively. In other embodiments, theclient device 110 locally stores settings or preferences for the userand for the additional user in association with information identifyingthe user and identifying the additional user, provided privacy settingsmaintained for the user and for the additional user authorize the clientdevice 110 to locally store the settings, preferences, or informationidentifying the user or the additional user; this allows the user or theadditional user to maintain local settings describing or modifying howthe client device 110 generates 480 the feed of content.

The client device 110 may also account for prior interaction with theclient device 110 by the user and by the additional user when generating480 the feed, subject to privacy settings maintained for the user andfor the additional user. For example, if a privacy setting maintainedfor the user (or for the additional user) authorizes the client device110 to store information describing interaction by the user with theclient device 110 or for the online system 140 to store informationdescribing interaction by the user with the client device 110 receivedfrom the client device 110 and another privacy setting maintained forthe user authorizes the client device 110 to access the storedinformation describing prior interaction by the user with the clientdevice 110, the client device 110 generates one or more content itemsincluding recommendations for using the client device 110. As anexample, based on stored information identifying interaction with theclient device 110 by the user, the client device 110 generates a contentitem identifying a modification to a setting of a component of thecontent item or generates a content item identifying a functionality ofthe client device 110 that the user has not previously used within aspecific time interval. The client device 110 includes the content itemin the generated feed. However, if a privacy setting maintained for theuser does not authorize the client device 110 to store informationdescribing interaction with the client device 110 or to access storedinformation describing interaction with the client device 110, theclient device 110 does not access information describing priorinteraction with the client device 110 by the user, so the client device110 does not generate a content item for inclusion in the generated feeddescribing modification to a setting of the client device 110 orfunctionality of the client device 110. When identifying a modificationto a setting or a functionality of the client device 110, the clientdevice 110 may account for settings of the client device 110 at the timethe feed is generated 480, as well as functionality provided by theclient device 110 when the feed is generated 480. For example, theclient device 110 excludes content items from the generated feed thatdescribe functionality of the client device 110 used when the feed isgenerated 480 (e.g., if the client device 110 is playing audio data whenthe feed is generated 480, content items identifying that the clientdevice 110 is capable of playing audio data are not included in thegenerated feed).

In some embodiments, the client device 110 maintains a setting for theuser that prevents presentation of content for the user by the clientdevice 110 when video data or image data captured 410 by the clientdevice 110 includes at least one person other than the user andmaintains an alternative setting for the additional user authorizing theclient device 110 to present content for the additional user when theclient device 110 captures 410 video data including one or more peopleother than the additional user. In the preceding example, the clientdevice 110 generates 480 the feed of content to include additionalcontent items selected 450 for the additional user but not includingcontent items selected 460 for the additional user. In some embodiments,a setting maintained for the user authorizes the client device 110 topresent content for the user when video data or image data captured 410by the client device 110 includes specific other users for whom thesetting includes identifying information. In response to determininginformation identifying the other user matches (or has at least athreshold measure of similarity) with information identifying a specificother user included in the setting, the client device 110 generates 480the feed of content to include content items selected 450 for the userand additional content items selected 460 for the additional user. Asanother example, the client device 110 maintains a setting for the userspecifying a time interval during which content for the user isauthorized to be presented when one or more other people are included inthe video data captured 410 by the client device 110; accordingly, theclient device 110 includes content items selected 450 for the user inthe feed of content when generating 480 the feed within the specifiedtime interval and does not include content items selected 450 for theuser when generating 480 the feed at times outside of the specified timeinterval. The client device 110 similarly accounts for similar settingsmaintained for the additional user when generating 480 the feed ofcontent.

Additionally, the client device 110 maintains a setting specifying oneor more criteria for including content items in the generated feed. Forexample, the setting identifies an event, so the client device 110includes content items from the online system 140 that are associatedwith or identify the event, causing the feed of content to includecontent items (e.g., photographs, videos, stories) associated with (orotherwise identifying) the event. The user or the additional user mayspecify the setting, allowing the user or the additional user toinfluence the content items included in the feed. The client device 110may bias the generated feed to include a greater number of content itemshaving at least a threshold amount of the criteria specified by thesetting. For example, the client device 110 includes at least athreshold number of content items satisfying the one or more criteriaspecified by the setting or generates 480 the feed so that at least athreshold percentage of content items included in the feed satisfy oneor more of the criteria specified by the setting. Any suitable criteriamay be specified by the setting and used to identify content items forinclusion in the feed. Example criteria include: an identifier of anevent, an identifier of a date, an identifier of a time, an identifierof a topic, an identifier of an object maintained by the online system140, and any other suitable information identifying one or morecharacteristics of content items.

In various embodiments, the client device 110 determines likelihoods ofthe user interacting with content items selected 450 for the user by theonline system 140 and similarly determines likelihoods of the additionaluser interacting with additional content items selected 460 for theadditional user by the online system 140. The client device 110generates 440 the feed of content based on the likelihoods of the useror the additional user interacting with various additional content itemsreceived from the online system 140. In one embodiment, the clientdevice 110 identifies content items selected 450 for the user with whichthe user has at least a threshold likelihood of interacting andidentifies additional content items selected 460 for the additional userwith which the user has at least the threshold likelihood ofinteracting. Alternatively, the client device 110 generates a ranking ofcontent items selected 450 of the user based on the likelihoods of theuser interacting with the content items selected 450 for the user andgenerates an additional ranking of additional content items selected 460for the additional user based on the likelihoods of the additional userinteracting with the additional content items selected 460 for theadditional user. The client device 110 generates 480 the feed of contentby selecting content items having at least a threshold position in theranking and additional content items having at least a thresholdposition in the additional ranking. In various embodiments, the clientdevice 110 may determine likelihoods of the user or of the additionaluser interacting with content items based on information from the onlinesystem 140 describing prior interactions with content by the user and bythe additional user. As another example, the client device 110 generatesa combined ranking of content items selected 450 for the user andadditional content items selected 460 for the additional user andselects content items having at least a threshold position in theranking for the feed of content. Alternatively, the client device 110determines measures of relevance to the user of various content itemsselected 450 for the user by the online system 140 and similarlydetermines measures of relevance to the additional user of variousadditional content items selected 460 for the additional user by theonline system 140, as further described above in conjunction with FIG.3. The client device 110 generates 480 the feed of content based on themeasures of relevance using methods similar to those described aboveregarding likelihoods of interaction with content items (e.g., selectingcontent items from a combined ranking based on measures of relevance forcontent items selected 450 of the user and for content items selected460 for the additional user, selecting content items from separaterankings for the user and for the additional user based on measures ofrelevance).

In an additional embodiment, the client device 110 trains a model togenerate 480 the feed of content based on prior interactions withcontent items by the user and by the additional user. For example, whenthe user or the additional user interacts with or views a presentedcontent item, the client device 110 extracts one or more characteristicsof the presented content item (e.g., one or more topics, a userassociated with the presented content item, an object maintained by theonline system 140 associated with the presented content item, etc.). Theclient device 110 determines weights for one or more of the extractedcharacteristics of the presented content item and stores the weights inassociation with their corresponding extracted characteristics. Whengenerating 480 the feed of content, the client device 110 extractscharacteristics from the content items and from the additional contentitems and applies weights to characteristics extracted from the contentitems and from the additional content items matching storedcharacteristics associated with the weights. The client device 110determines values for each of the content items and the additionalcontent items based on the applied weights; for example, a value for acontent item is a sum of the weights of characteristics extracted fromthe content item. To generate 480 the feed of content, the client device110 selects content items or additional content items having at least athreshold value. In other embodiments, the client device 110 ranks thecontent items and the additional content items based on their values andgenerates 480 the feed of content to include content items or additionalcontent items having at least a threshold position in the ranking. Theclient device 110 locally stores the model in various embodiments, andmay modify weights associated with different characteristics extractedfrom content items based on characteristics of content items viewed bythe user or by the additional user or interactions with content items bythe user or by the additional user. In some embodiments, the clientdevice 110 decreases a weight associated with a characteristic extractedfrom a content item if the user or the additional user performs certaininteractions with the content item (e.g., dismisses the content item,submits a complaint to the online system 140 identifying the contentitem). Additionally, the client device 110 may apply a decay factor toweights that attenuates a weight as a time interval from a current timeto a time when a content item having a characteristic corresponding tothe weight was viewed by, or interacted with, the user or the additionaluser.

The client device 110 may account for other information captured by theclient device 110 when generating 480 the feed of content in variousembodiments. For example, the client device 110 includes one or moreaudio capture devices configured to capture audio data from anenvironment including the client device 110. The client device 110 maytransmit portions of the captured audio data to the online system 140,provided such transmission is authorized by privacy settings maintainedfor the user and for the additional user. Based on the portions of thecaptured audio data, the online system 140 identifies an objectcorresponding to one or more portions of the captured audio data andtransmits content items associated with the identified object to theclient device 110, which includes the content items corresponding to theportions of the captured audio data in the feed. For example, the onlinesystem 140 identifies a television program corresponding to a portion ofthe audio data from the client device 110 and transmits content itemsassociated with the television program to the client device 110,allowing the client device 110 to augment the television program bypresenting related content. Similarly, the client device 110 maytransmit portions of video data captured by the image capture device 117to the online system 140, provided such transmission is authorized byprivacy settings maintained for the user and for the additional user.Based on the portions of the video data, the online system 140identifies an object corresponding to one or more portions of the videodata and transmits content items associated with an identified object tothe client device 110, which includes the one or more content itemsassociated with the identified object in the generated feed. The clientdevice 110 may include the portions of the audio data or the video datain the

The client device 110 may account for a time when the content items werereceived or a time when the request identifying the user and theadditional user was transmitted 440 to the online system 140 whengenerating 480 the feed. For example, the client device 110 determineswhether a date when the information identifying the user and theadditional user matches a date identified by a user profile of the useror by a user profile of the additional user (e.g., a birthday, a weddinganniversary, etc.), subject to one or more privacy settings of the useror of the additional user, as further described above. If the date whenthe information identifying the user or identifying the additional usermatches a date identified by a user profile of the user or of theadditional user, subject to privacy settings for the user or for theadditional user, the client device 110 includes content items associatedwith the date identified in the user profile of the user or of theadditional user in the generated feed, subject to privacy settingsmaintained for the user or for the additional user. In otherembodiments, the client device 110 accounts for prior interactions bythe user or by the additional user with the client device 110 during atime range when the request identifying the user and the additional userwas transmitted was transmitted 440 to the online system 140, subject toprivacy settings maintained for the user and for the additional user, asfurther described above. For example, based on prior interactions withthe client device 110 stored by the client device 110 or by the onlinesystem 140, the client device 110 retrieves stored interactions by theuser (or by the additional user) with the client device 110 associatedwith times within a time range including a time when the client device110 transmitted 440 the request identifying the user and the additionaluser, or retrieves stored interactions by the user (or by the additionaluser) associated with times within a time range including a time whenthe client device 110 received content items from the online system 140,provided that privacy settings maintained for the user or for theadditional user authorize the client device 110 to retrieve interactionsmaintained for the user or for the additional user. Based on theretrieved interactions previously stored in the action log 320 andassociated with times within the time range for the user or for theadditional user, the client device 110 obtains one or more content itemsbased on characteristics of the retrieved interactions. For example, ifthe retrieved interactions include at least a threshold number ofrequests for content having a particular topic associated with the andassociated with times within the time range including the time when theclient device 110 transmitted 440 the request to the online system 140,the client device 110 obtains one or more content items associated withthe particular topic in response to receiving the request for contentidentifying the user (e.g., retrieves one or more content itemsassociated with a topic of “news” or retrieves one or more content itemsassociated with a topic of “recipe”). The client device 110 may storeinformation identifying different time ranges, or the online system 140may store information identifying the different time ranges. In someembodiments, the online system 140 or the client device 110 storesdifferent time ranges in association with the user and with theadditional user, allowing the client device 110 to further personalizecontent included in the generated feed based on different usage patternsof the client device 110 by the user and by the additional user.

As another example the client device 110 extracts topics from variouscontent items and additional content items received from the onlinesystem 140. The client device 110 generates a set of topics includingtopics extracted from content items selected 450 for the user andgenerates an additional set of topics including topics extracted fromadditional content items selected 460 for presentation to the additionaluser. For each of at least a set of content items, the online system 140determines a score based on an amount (e.g., a percentage, a number) oftopics extracted from a content item of the set matching topics of theadditional set of topics. Similarly, for each of at least a set ofadditional content items, the online system 140 determines a score basedon an amount (e.g., a percentage, a number) of topics extracted from anadditional content item of the set matching topics of the set of topics.The client device 110 may normalize the scores for the content items andthe scores for the additional content items to account for differencesin numbers of topics extracted from different content items andadditional content items. Based on the scores for the content items andfor the additional content items, the client device 110 generates aranking of the content items and the additional content items. Togenerate 480 the feed of content, the client device 110 selects contentitems or additional content items having at least a threshold positionin the ranking.

In various embodiments, when generating 480 the feed of content, theclient device 110 includes content items from one or more third partysystems 130 or from applications executing on the client device 110. Forexample, the client device 110 retrieves content from one or more thirdparty systems 130 associated with applications executing on the clientdevice 110, or from the applications executing on the client device 110,and evaluates content items from the one or more third party systems130, or from the applications executing on the client device 110, whengenerating 480 the feed of content. In some embodiments, the clientdevice 110 accounts for frequencies with which the user or theadditional user interact with an application executing on the clientdevice 110 and associated with a third party system 130 to increase alikelihood of the generated feed including content items from the thirdparty system 130 or from the application executing on the client device110, provided one or more privacy settings maintained by the onlinesystem 140 or the client device for the user or for the additional userauthorize the client device 110 to store information describinginteraction by the user or by the additional user with applicationsexecuting on the client device 110 and to subsequently access storedinformation describing interaction by the user or by the additional userwith applications executing on the client device 110. For example, acontent item retrieved from a third party system 130 associated with anapplication executing on the client device 110, or from the applicationexecuting on the client device, with which the user more frequentlyinteracts has a greater likelihood of being included in the generatedfeed than another content item retrieved from another third party system130 associated with another application executing on the client device110, or retrieved from the other application executing on the clientdevice, with which the user less frequently interacts.

Additionally, the client device 110 includes information identifyingcontacts maintained for the user and for the additional user in thegenerated feed in some embodiments. The online system 140 maintains alisting of contacts for the user that includes information identifyingone or more other users and information for contacting each of the otherusers (e.g., a phone number, an e-mail address, etc.). Similarly, theonline system 140 maintains an additional listing of contacts for theadditional user that includes information identifying one or more otherusers and information for contacting each of the other users (e.g., aphone number, an e-mail address, etc.). In various embodiments, thelisting of contacts is included in a user profile the online system 140maintains for the user, and the additional listing of contacts isincluded in a user profile the online system 140 maintains for the user.Additionally or alternatively, the list of contacts for the user ismaintained by the client device 110 in association with informationidentifying the user, and the additional list of contacts for theadditional user is maintained by the client device 110 in associationwith information identifying the additional user. If privacy settingsmaintained for the user and for the additional user authorize the clientdevice 110 to access the list of contacts and the additional list ofcontacts, the client device 110 accesses the list of contacts and theadditional list of contacts and generates a combined contact listingthat includes at least one contact maintained for the user and at leastone contact maintained for the additional user. Subsequently, thecombined contact listing is included in the generated feed of content.The client device 110 may use any suitable information to generate thecombined contact listing. For example, the combined contact listingincludes contacts who the user contacted at least a threshold number oftimes or contacted with at least a threshold frequency and contacts whothe additional user contacted at least the threshold number of times orwith at least the threshold frequency (provided privacy settingsmaintained for the user and for the additional user authorize the clientdevice 110 to access stored actions identifying use of the listing ofcontacts or of the additional listing of contacts by the user or by theadditional user, respectively). The combined contact listing includesalso configuration information corresponding to establishingcommunications with a contact of the user or with a contact of theadditional user. For example, the combined contact listing includesaudio or visual effects specified by the user for communicating withanother user in the list of contacts or audio or visual effects (e.g., asound effect to identify a communication to or from the other user, avisual indication of a communication to or from the other user, etc.)specified by the additional user for communicating with another in theadditional list of contacts.

In various embodiments, when the client device 110 receives aninteraction with a content item of the feed of content, the clientdevice 110 determines distances between the client device 110 and theuser and between the client device 110 and the additional user when theinteraction was received. If the distance between the client device 110and the user is less than the distance between the client device 110 andthe additional user, the client device 110 determines that the userinteracted with the content item. The client device 110 subsequentlystores information identifying the content item in association withinformation identifying the user, and may provide an indication to theonline system 140 identifying the user, the content item, and theinteraction with the content item by the user. Conversely, if thedistance between the client device 110 and the additional user is lessthan the distance between the client device 110 and the user, the clientdevice 110 determines that the additional user interacted with thecontent item. The client device 110 subsequently stores informationidentifying the content item in association with information identifyingthe additional user, and may provide an indication to the online system140 identifying the additional user, the content item, and theinteraction with the content item by the additional user. The onlinesystem 140 or the client device 110 may account for content items oradditional content items when subsequently selecting content for theuser or for the additional user or when generating 480 a subsequent feedof content. For example, the client device 110 removes content items oradditional content items with which the user or the additional userpreviously interacted from a subsequent feed of content.

In some embodiments, the client device 110 may determine an amount oftime content items or additional content items of the feed are presentedwhile the user or the additional user is included in the captured videodata. The client device 110 stores information indicating a content itemor an additional content item of the feed of content was presented tothe user if the content item or the additional content item waspresented by the client device 110 for at least a threshold amount oftime while the user was within the captured video data. Similarly, theclient device 110 stores information indicating a content item or anadditional content item of the feed of content was presented to theadditional user if the content item or the additional content item waspresented by the client device 110 for at least a threshold amount oftime while the additional user was within the captured video data. Theclient device 110 may provide information to the online system 140identifying content items or additional content items determined to havebeen presented to the user or to have been presented to the additionaluser. The online system 140 or the client device 110 may account forcontent items or additional content items presented to the user or tothe additional user when generating a subsequent feed of content; forexample, the client device 110 does not include content items oradditional content items determined to have previously been presented tothe user or to the additional user.

While FIG. 4 describes generation of a feed based on the user and theadditional user, the client device 110 may generate or modify othercontent based on the user and the identified additional user. Forexample, the client device 110 obtains (e.g., from local storage or fromthe online system 140) content particular to the user and to theadditional user. For example, the client device 110 obtains visual oraudio effects (e.g., video filters, video overlays, audio effects)maintained for the user and for the additional user and applies thecorresponding visual or audio effect to actions by the user or theadditional user or to content for the user or the additional user. Forexample, the client device 110 determines that the user is initiating anaudio or video call via the client device 110 and applies audio or videoeffects maintained for the user to the audio or video call; similarly,when the client device 110 determines that the additional user isinitiating an audio or video call via the client device 110, the clientdevice 110 d applies audio or video effects maintained for theadditional user to the audio or video call.

FIG. 5 is an example a client device 500 including a display device 520presenting a feed of content 530. The client device 500 shown in FIG. 5is an embodiment of the client device 110 with the camera 510 and thedisplay device 520 as embodiments of the image capture device 117 andthe display device 115, respectively. As described above in conjunctionwith FIGS. 2 and 4, the camera 510 captures video data or image date ofa local area surrounding the client device 110. From the captured imagedata or video data, the client device 500 identifies a user and anadditional user of an online system 140, as further described above inconjunction with FIGS. 2 and 4. The client device 500 sends identifyinginformation the user and the additional user to the online system 140,which selects content items for presentation to the user and additionalcontent items for presentation to the additional user, as furtherdescribed above in conjunction with FIGS. 3 and 4.

From the content items and the additional content items received fromthe online system 140, the client device 500 generates the feed ofcontent 530 and presents the feed of content 530 via the display device520. In the example shown by FIG. 5, the feed of content 530 includescontent items 535A, 535B, 535C selected for presentation to the user andadditional content item 540 selected for presentation to the additionaluser. Subject to one or more settings stored by the client device 110for the user or for the additional user, the client device 550 generatesthe feed of content 530 to include at least one content item 535A, 535B,535C selected for the user and at least one additional content item 540selected for the additional user. As further described above inconjunction with FIG. 4, the client device 110 may account forinteractions with content items by the user or by the additional userwith previously presented content items when generating the feed ofcontent 530. For example, the client device 110 locally maintains amodel trained based on content items previously viewed by or interactedwith by the user or the additional user and generates the feed ofcontent 530 by applying the model to content items and additionalcontent items received from the online system 140. Including one or morecontent items 535A, 535B, 525C and one or more additional content items540 in the feed of content 530 allows both the user and the additionaluser to more easily view content selected by the online system 140 viathe client device 500.

While FIG. 5 shows an example where the feed of content 530 concurrentlypresents multiple content items 535A, 535B, 535C selected forpresentation to the user and the additional content item 540, in otherembodiments, the feed of content 530 presents a single content item fromcontent items 535A, 535B, 535C and additional content item 540 at onetime, and subsequently presents an alternative content item from contentitems 535A, 535B, 535C and additional content item 540 in response tothe client device 500 receiving an input. For example, the client device500 obtains pages corresponding to content items 535A, 535B, 535C andadditional content item 540 and orders the pages corresponding tocontent items 535A, 535B, 535C and additional content item 540. Theclient device 500 presents a single page corresponding to a selected oneof content items 535A, 535B, 535C and additional content item 540, whilenot presenting the other pages corresponding to non-selected contentitems 535A, 535B, 535C and additional content item 540. After receivingan input, the client device 500 selects an alternative content item ofcontent items 535A, 535B, 535C and additional content item 540 andpresents the page corresponding to the alternative content item withoutpresenting pages corresponding to other content items 535A, 535B, 535Cand additional content item 540. Hence, the client device 500sequentially presents individual content items from the feed of content530 in some embodiments, allowing the user and the individual user tointeract with the client device 500 to view different content items fromthe feed of content 530.

CONCLUSION

The foregoing description of the embodiments has been presented for thepurpose of illustration; it is not intended to be exhaustive or to limitthe patent rights to the precise forms disclosed. Persons skilled in therelevant art can appreciate that many modifications and variations arepossible in light of the above disclosure.

Some portions of this description describe the embodiments in terms ofalgorithms and symbolic representations of operations on information.These algorithmic descriptions and representations are commonly used bythose skilled in the data processing arts to convey the substance oftheir work effectively to others skilled in the art. These operations,while described functionally, computationally, or logically, areunderstood to be implemented by computer programs or equivalentelectrical circuits, microcode, or the like. Furthermore, it has alsoproven convenient at times, to refer to these arrangements of operationsas modules, without loss of generality. The described operations andtheir associated modules may be embodied in software, firmware,hardware, or any combinations thereof.

Any of the steps, operations, or processes described herein may beperformed or implemented with one or more hardware or software modules,alone or in combination with other devices. In one embodiment, asoftware module is implemented with a computer program productcomprising a computer-readable medium containing computer program code,which can be executed by a computer processor for performing any or allof the steps, operations, or processes described.

Embodiments may also relate to an apparatus for performing theoperations herein. This apparatus may be specially constructed for therequired purposes, and/or it may comprise a general-purpose computingdevice selectively activated or reconfigured by a computer programstored in the computer. Such a computer program may be stored in anon-transitory, tangible computer readable storage medium, or any typeof media suitable for storing electronic instructions, which may becoupled to a computer system bus. Furthermore, any computing systemsreferred to in the specification may include a single processor or maybe architectures employing multiple processor designs for increasedcomputing capability.

Embodiments may also relate to a product that is produced by a computingprocess described herein. Such a product may comprise informationresulting from a computing process, where the information is stored on anon-transitory, tangible computer readable storage medium and mayinclude any embodiment of a computer program product or other datacombination described herein.

Finally, the language used in the specification has been principallyselected for readability and instructional purposes, and it may not havebeen selected to delineate or circumscribe the patent rights. It istherefore intended that the scope of the patent rights be limited not bythis detailed description, but rather by any claims that issue on anapplication based hereon. Accordingly, the disclosure of the embodimentsis intended to be illustrative, but not limiting, of the scope of thepatent rights, which is set forth in the following claims.

1. (canceled)
 2. A method comprising: capturing video data of a localarea within a field of view of an image capture device included in aclient device; identifying a user of an online system included in thecaptured video data; transmitting a request for content items forpresentation on the client device to the online system from the clientdevice, the request including information identifying the user of theonline system; receiving, at the client device, a plurality of contentitems from the online system, each content item of the plurality ofcontent items selected by the online system for presentation to theuser; generating, by the client device, a feed of content including oneor more of the content items based on characteristics of the contentitems; and presenting the feed of content by a display device of theclient device.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the informationidentifying the user comprises an identifier associated with the user bythe online system.
 4. The method of claim 2, wherein identifying theuser of the online system included in the captured video data comprises:identifying a person in the captured video data; retrieving informationidentifying one or more users of the online system stored by the clientdevice and privacy settings maintained for each of the one or moreusers; and identifying the user of the online system as a userassociated with identifying information stored by the online systemhaving at least a threshold measure of similarity to the person inresponse to a privacy setting maintained for the user authorizingidentification of the user from the captured video data.
 5. The methodof claim 2, further comprising: retrieving one or more settingsmaintained by the client device for the user; determining whether one ormore additional users are included in the captured video data; andresponsive to a setting maintained by the client device for the userrestricting the client device from presenting content for the user whenthe captured video data includes at least one user other than the user,removing the feed of content from the display device of the clientdevice.
 6. The method of claim 2, wherein generating, by the clientdevice, the feed of content including one or more of the content itemsbased on characteristics of the content items comprises: determining atime range including a time when the client device transmitted therequest to the online system; determining prior interactions by the userwith the client device within the time range; selecting one or morecontent items for inclusion in the feed based on one or morecharacteristics of the prior interactions by the user with the clientdevice.
 7. The method of claim 2, wherein generating, by the clientdevice, the feed of content further comprises: accessing one or moreapplications executing on the client device; retrieving one or moreapplication content items from the applications; and including the oneor more application content items in the feed of content.
 8. The methodof claim 7, wherein generating, by the client device, the feed ofcontent further comprises: retrieving a frequency of interaction witheach application; and ranking the application content items in the feedof content based on the frequencies of interaction.
 9. The method ofclaim 2, wherein generating, by the client device, the feed of contentfurther comprises: retrieving a listing of contacts maintained for theuser; and including one or more of the contacts in the feed of content.10. The method of claim 2, wherein generating, by the client device, thefeed of content including one or more of the content items based oncharacteristics of the content items comprises: retrieving a settingmaintained by the client device for the user, the setting specifying oneor more criteria for content items presented by the feed of content; andgenerating the feed to include at least a threshold amount of contentitems having characteristics satisfying at least a threshold amount ofthe one or more criteria specified by the setting.
 11. The method ofclaim 10, wherein the one or more criteria for the content itemspresented by the feed of content are selected from a group consistingof: an identifier of an event, an identifier of a date, an identifier ofa time, an identifier of a topic, an identifier of an object maintainedby the online system, and any combination thereof.
 12. A non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, whenexecuted by a processor, cause the processor to perform operationscomprising: capturing video data of a local area within a field of viewof an image capture device included in a client device; identifying auser of an online system included in the captured video data;transmitting a request for content items for presentation on the clientdevice to the online system from the client device, the requestincluding information identifying the user of the online system;receiving, at the client device, a plurality of content items from theonline system, each content item of the plurality of content itemsselected by the online system for presentation to the user; generating,by the client device, a feed of content including one or more of thecontent items based on characteristics of the content items; andpresenting the feed of content by a display device of the client device.13. The storage medium of claim 12, wherein the information identifyingthe user comprises an identifier associated with the user by the onlinesystem.
 14. The storage medium of claim 12, wherein identifying the userof the online system included in the captured video data comprises:identifying a person in the captured video data; retrieving informationidentifying one or more users of the online system stored by the clientdevice and privacy settings maintained for each of the one or moreusers; and identifying the user of the online system as a userassociated with identifying information stored by the online systemhaving at least a threshold measure of similarity to the person inresponse to a privacy setting maintained for the user authorizingidentification of the user from the captured video data.
 15. The storagemedium of claim 12, the operations further comprising: retrieving one ormore settings maintained by the client device for the user; determiningwhether one or more additional users are included in the captured videodata; and responsive to a setting maintained by the client device forthe user restricting the client device from presenting content for theuser when the captured video data includes at least one user other thanthe user, removing the feed of content from the display device of theclient device.
 16. The storage medium of claim 12, wherein generating,by the client device, the feed of content including one or more of thecontent items based on characteristics of the content items comprises:determining a time range including a time when the client devicetransmitted the request to the online system; determining priorinteractions by the user with the client device within the time range;selecting one or more content items for inclusion in the feed based onone or more characteristics of the prior interactions by the user withthe client device.
 17. The storage medium of claim 12, whereingenerating, by the client device, the feed of content further comprises:accessing one or more applications executing on the client device;retrieving one or more application content items from the applications;and including the one or more application content items in the feed ofcontent.
 18. The storage medium of claim 17, wherein generating, by theclient device, the feed of content further comprises: retrieving afrequency of interaction with each application; and ranking theapplication content items in the feed of content based on thefrequencies of interaction.
 19. The storage medium of claim 12, whereingenerating, by the client device, the feed of content further comprises:retrieving a listing of contacts maintained for the user; and includingone or more of the contacts in the feed of content.
 20. The storagemedium of claim 12, wherein generating, by the client device, the feedof content including one or more of the content items based oncharacteristics of the content items comprises: retrieving a settingmaintained by the client device for the user, the setting specifying oneor more criteria for content items presented by the feed of content; andgenerating the feed to include at least a threshold amount of contentitems having characteristics satisfying at least a threshold amount ofthe one or more criteria specified by the setting.
 21. The storagemedium of claim 20, wherein the one or more criteria for the contentitems presented by the feed of content are selected from a groupconsisting of: an identifier of an event, an identifier of a date, anidentifier of a time, an identifier of a topic, an identifier of anobject maintained by the online system, and any combination thereof.